A Christmas Story
by kototyph
Summary: Request!Fic. Prompt: Denmark/Norway, happy fun friend time, may be holiday-themed, possible inclusion of other Scandinavians, and there must be a glimpse, however brief, of Norway's cute side! For Steshulitchka.


**A Christmas Story**  
la-russophile

* * *

Although it's about Christmas, this fic is a Новгодный (New Year) present and a request from my fav of favs, Steshulitchka, which means that it is only slightly late instead of really super late. I hope she likes it! Prompt: Den/Nor, happy fun friend time, may be holiday-themed, possible inclusion of other Scandinavians, and there must be a glimpse, however brief, of Norway's cute side!

* * *

"NORGE!"

A small sidestep, and Denmark's flying tackle landed him facedown in the dirt of the road, rather than on top of the Norwegian he'd been aiming for. Undeterred, he pried his face out of the mud and spitting out a mouthful shouted, "_Hej_, Norge!"

The numinous troll that floated beside the other nation turned to smile hugely and wave. The nation of Norway, however, completely ignored him, even as the Dane leapt to his feet and charged again. "Oi, Luuuuuu-kaaaaaaas-!" The smaller nation dodged with minimal movement, and Mathias went careening into the underbrush. "Ow!"

His next attack, as he rolled back out of the bushes, was a low leg sweep accompanied by a cheerfully combative "_Heeeeeej_, _listen_ when I'm _talking_, Norge," and Norway took the opportunity of the Dane's low position to use his head as a step up over a small puddle. "Ouch!"

"Go away."

"I see!" the Dane exclaimed happily after him, dusty and already a little bruised around the edges. "Then, let's discuss this- WITH OUR FISTS!"

A twitch of his hair curl, and Norway's troll flattened Denmark into the soft dirt with one blow of his mighty hammer. When Mathias pulled himself free (much more slowly this time), he left a mold perfect enough to bake Denmark-shaped muffins in.

Due to the natures of both participants, this spectacle went on for some time, and indeed was a bit of a ritual between the two of them. By the end, Denmark was a staggering black-and-blue mess and Norway was just as far down the road as he would have been without interruption.

Falling slowly to his knees, then the ground, the panting Dane managed to gasp out to the other nation's retreating back, "Lukas! I just wanted to ask... what you wanted... for _Jul_...!"

"Shut up and stop following me," the Norwegian said without turning his head. The troll waved sadly goodbye.

"Noooorge...!" Denmark wailed, and collapsed facedown on the road.

* * *

[_Jul_ - Yule, Christmas]

* * *

Iceland threw another rock down the sheer cliff face of Skagafjörður and shouted, "Go away, Danmörk! You're bothering my birds!"

Denmark, face a mess of cuts and scrapes from the beaks of the bloodthirsty puffins currently attempting to pry him from the face of the fjord, yelped as the stone beaned him in the forehead. He shouted back, "But I just wanted to ask your advice!"

"Go _away_!"

The Dane managed to haul himself up another few inches, even though the puffins were at this point dive-bombing him the thousands. "Ice, it's really important, I swear!" One of his hands slipped, and he was suddenly suspended by only a few fingers over a hundred-foot chasm in the earth. "Eeep!"

The beady, evil little eyes of the puffins lit with fierce satisfaction. "Er, _blid lunder_?" he tried.

The fall down the fjord was long and ended in very icy waters.

* * *

[_blid lunder_? - nice puffins?]

* * *

The nation of Sweden glowered darkly over his steaming mug of coffee as Finland fussed over the Danish nation's wet hair and soaked clothes. "... wh'd'y'wn' ag'n?"

Teeth chattering almost too hard to speak, Mathias answered, "_N-n-norge... p-p-p-p-pres-s-s-sent-t..._"

"_Hys_," Tino chided him, and handed him a hot mug of glögg. "You'd better just sit for a bit."

Denmark had burst in on breakfast in the Finno-Swedish household, or rather, had fallen into the room frozen stiff after a drowsy Peter had sleepily pointed out the blue face in the window and Tino had run to open the door.

Berwald took a long, slow sip. "Y'r buy'n N'rge a pr's'nt?"

Swathed in layers of blankets and towels, Mathias nodded enthusiastically, albeit a bit spasticly. "B-b-b-but I d-d-don't know wh-what he w-wants! He's always the h-hardest to shop for!

"I kn-kn-know what to get Tino because all he ever w-wants is aprons and spring-form pans and _husmor_ things-"

Tino looked shocked, then a bit bewildered. "I... I do more than cook... and clean... and dust and bake... I am an independent nation after all... right?" he asked, sounding less and less sure.

"-and all Ice wants is timber, 'cause he lives on that barren bit of nothing-"

"_Right_?" Tino asked again, a bit hysterically.

"-and I always know what to g-get Sealand because all he ever wants is munitions to fortify his _lillebitte_ c-coastline-"

The two parents turned to look at Peter, who sunk so low in his chair his chin touched the tabletop. "I wasn't gonna do anything with them!" he protested. "They're for defense maneuvers in case England attacks!"

"- and I always know what to get Sverige b-because all he ever wants is sexy lingerie for-"

_Crack_.

Berwald, who had not been happy to find his former oppressor in his kitchen so early in the morning, had been doubly unhappy that this nation had upset his wife with tactless '_husmor_' comments and had been triply unhappy that his young son was storing munitions. By this last unfinished statement he had been rendered so unhappy that he had leaned forward and shattered his mug over the Dane's dense head.

"..._owie_..." the Dane sighed as he slumped onto the table and into his bowl of _puuro_, the shards of the mug and puddle of coffee haloing around his head.

Silence.

Then, "What's lawn-jer-ay?"

"P't'r, t'day w're m'king tw'th's'nd orders'f Hemnes sh'lves. B'st t'get st'rted," Berwald announced to the room at large, and tucking the kicking boy under his arm, he practically leapt out the door.

Finland was left speechless in his kitchen, the glögg steaming away gently and an unconscious Dane gurgling as he drowned in _puuro_.

* * *

[_hys_ - hush; glögg - glintvin... spiced wine?; _lillebitte _- tiny little; _husmor_ - housewife; Hemnes shelves - an Ikea product]

* * *

"_Så_, as I was trying to say-"

"Eat, eat," the much larger nation urged him, frowning so conscientiously that Denmark dragged a few more sweet aladushki and blini onto his already full plate. Under the weight of that stare, he reluctantly forked a few thin pancakes up, then a few more as the stare intensified, and stuffed them in his mouth.

"Tea?" Ivan asked him, already moving to start the kettle. Mathias said something that sounded like "Nmf."

"Here, have some _pichenia_, too."

The Dane swallowed massively and tried to fend off the proffered dish of cookies. "No, _virkelig_, I'm good. Anyway, Rusland, since you share borders I thought you might have some idea-"

"_Kushai_," the big Russian insisted. "Then _chai._ Then more _chai_, and then we discuss business. You are far too skinny."

"Er, _tak_?" He looked down and saw that somehow, the cookies he had been avoiding had snuck their way onto the top of the mountain of blini. He looked up at his host and Ivan smiled happily back.

"Did you want more, _malish'_?"

* * *

[_Så _- so; _pichenia_ - cookies; _virkelig_ - really truly; _kushai_ - eat (imperative); _chai _- tea; _tak_ - thanks; _malish'_ - young (man)]

* * *

"I'm telling you, I barely escaped with my life!"

Gilbert shook his head, a slow drunken movement that barely required him to lift his chin off his folded arms. "Feeding to death: one of the many ways Vanushka has tried to kill me. Way number one, actually."

Mathias clutched at his stomach. "All I want to know is what Norge wants for Christmas!" he moaned piteously. "Is that too much to ask?"

"Norrr-way?" said the Spaniard on the other side of him, in the slow, very precise diction of the slightly sloshed. "Noruega... _sé muy poco de él_. I think he raided a few times when I was still hosting the Moors. You could get him a new dragonboat, for the _armadas_ of I, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, great nation of España, have been the doom of many a _vikingo_...!"

At this point, the great nation of España slid backwards off his barstool and onto the floor, still toasting himself.

The Frenchman sitting across from the three of them mused, "I can't say that I really know that much about Norway..."

"Not from lack of trying," Gilbert said snidely.

Francis sniffed and shrugged. "Well, it's true that he's always been quite cold to me, _la France_, warmest of nations. I began to wonder if he even had a personality."

"Of course he does! He's nice and funny and very cute!" the Dane exclaimed indignantly, his beer sloshing over the sides of his stein from his wildly waving arms. "He's not cold at all! Well, of course he's cold, I mean parts of him are above the Arctic circle, but inside he's a wonderful person and I for one-"

"Well then." Gilbert grabbed the hand with the stein and forced it down, before any more beer could be spilled on his head. "I think this is better left to the one who knows him best."

"_Hvad_? Who?"

Francis rolled his eyes. "_You_, of course. _Mon Dieu_."

* * *

[_Hvad_ - what?; _Mon Dieu_ - my God]

* * *

And it was really the same story everywhere. Seychelles offered him fish, China recommended communism, but in the end, as Norway's self-proclaimed best friend the Dane was left with the at once disheartening and happy knowledge that even though he couldn't think of anything, everyone else had even less of a chance.

By this point, he'd been gone from Scandinavia for several days, and it was finally Christmas eve. Night had fallen, and the Norwegian skies were flecked with glorious golden stars. Even more glorious, in the distance ahead of Denmark strode a familiar figure, with a familiar bouncing curl.

As a rule, Mathias found it very difficult exercise even the smallest amount of stealthiness, especially when he hadn't seen Lukas for days and days. But in the spirit of Christmas surprise, he managed to contain his almost lunatic scream of "NOOOOOORGE!" until already airborn.

He saw the smaller nation glance up, saw his eyes narrow, and braced for an untimely impact with the ground. When he actually landed with full force on top of the other nation, flattening Norway to the ground, for a moment all he could do was gape. "Huh?"

"Geroff," Lukas growled.

"Norge?" His voiced had sounded funny. Denmark gingerly touched his shoulder, worried when the other nation avoided his gaze. "Are you okay?"

Lukas glanced at him, and something short-circuited in the Dane's brain when he saw, for the first time in decades, the shine of tears in Norway's eyes.

He hauled them both upright in a blink, looking from left to right and shouting furiously, "DID SOMEONE HURT YOU? I'll kill them! I'll tear them limb from limb! I'll-"

"Danmark," Lukas interrupted him, quietly.

"-use my _økse_ to chop off their-"

"Danmark."

"-and then use my CLAYMORE to-"

"Danmark!" the Norwegian nation snapped out. "_Hold kjeft_!"

And the Dane obeyed, sitting and smiling with dog-like attention. "_Hej_, you're not crying anymore. That's good."

Instead of responding, Lukas drew his knees up to his chin and glared at the Dane for a moment. When he finally did speak, it was to ask, "... where were you?"

"_Godt_..." Denmark sat back on his haunches. "You wouldn't tell me what you wanted for Jul, like always, so I had to go ask the other nations! Ice wouldn't talk to me, and Russia tried to feed me to death, and Gilbert was drunk and Francis was being Francis... it was all really frustrating, Norge. I even went to Seychelles!"

Norway looked down at his feet. "That's... why you were gone for so long?"

The Dane cocked his head. "Eh? Norge..." he began, a slow grin dawning, "Did you miss me?"

Norway was turning pink. "_Det er bare_... I told not to talk to me... and then you didn't... but you always talk to me... and I thought that... you might have..." He mumbled something inaudible into his knees.

Through this slow, halting speech, the Dane had been growing more and more effervescent until, at the last mumbled phrase, he exploded. "NORGE! YOU MISSED ME!"

A small gurgle escaped Norway as he was crushed in another tight Danish hug, and reflexively he brought his elbow down on Mathias's head with enough force to fell a buffalo. "Ah," he said as the blood began to flow. "_Beklager_..." But the Dane was laughing.

"Nor, you're my bestest best friend in the entire world! We'll be together forever!"

At that, though the Dane couldn't see it, Norway's face softened for the briefest of moments.

Then, "Let go."

"Awww," Denmark pouted, rubbing his face like a pleased cat in Norway's coat. "But this is the first time I've gotten to hug you in centuries!"

"Danmark..."

He pouted harder and tightened his hold around the Norwegian's waist. "No."

And perhaps Christmas is indeed a time for miracles, peace on earth and good will to men: the hug was allowed to persist for some time, at least until Mathias looked up into Lukas's once more expressionless face and asked hopefully, "Does this mean you'll be my _husmor_ like Tino is for Sverige?"

* * *

[_økse_ - ax; _Hold kjeft!_ - shut up!; _Godt - _well; _Det er bare_... - it's just...; _Beklager_ - (I'm) sorry]

* * *

**~Omake~**

"Well?"

"Hm?"

"... _did_ you get me anything for _Jul_?"

"Oh! I can't believe I forgot! Feast your eyes on THESE!"

"..."

"Look! Look, Norge! They're salt and pepper shakers!"

"..."

"WITH OUR FLAGS ON THEM!"

"..."

"See, I'm the pepper because I'm hot and spicy and- Norge? Norge, what's wrong? Why are your eyes glo-?"

_- ka-BOOOOOOM! -_

* * *

Sorry, Steshulitchka! The request was for Den/Nor fluff, but Norway hardly makes an appearance... TT^TT And it's super short... AND IT'S SO LATE... ПРОСТИ МЕНЯЯЯЯЯЯЯЯЯ!


End file.
